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Singer-Songwriter, contemporary Brazilian Pop
Lenine
| Brazil
Booking-Agent:
Frank Abraham
+49 30 261032920
fa@f-cat.de
Touring Highlights
UK/London: Jazz Café Barbican Centre, Womad Rivermead
Paris:La Villette, Cité de la Musique, Bataclan, La Cigale (2002)
France: Printemps de Bourges, Nancy Jazz Pulsations, Eurockeenes, Fiesta de Suds, ArtRock St. Brieu, Musique Metisses, Cote d'Opale, Festival d'Eté Nantes, Tour through Scene National and Clubs
Italy: Villa Ada, Arezzowave, Villa Arconati
Germany: Masala, Rudolstadt, Weltnacht
Switzerland: Paleo Festival, JazznoJazz
Spain: Grec Barcelona, Conde Duque and Suristan Madrid, Mar de Musicas in Cartagena, Santiago de Compostela, Jazzfestival San Sebastian
Benelux: Music Meeting, Sfinks Festival, Melkweg, Audi Jazz
Singer, composer, arranger, musician and producer. Few artists gather such recognized talent in so many activities. In the early eighties, the audience was bewildered by seeing Lenine and his group of musicians invading the stage, beating rustic-made drums, singing traditional maracatu refrains – a folk music from Pernambuco in Brazil – with a pop language and balancing the regional accents of his music.
Only 15 years later, the maracatu music has been accepted nationwide and Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco, was seen as a new musical creation pole. Pioneer is not the one who found it first – pioneer is the one who has always known it. Lenine always knew that maracatu was pop and that one of the few ways to create a truly brazilian pop music was to plunge deeply into its roots.
So, let’s begin by these roots. In his teen years in Recife, his birthplace, Lenine’s antenna captured Stevie Wonder, James Taylor and a lot of Led Zeppelin. At 17, when he began writing songs, he opened a record store with a friend to be closer to the so desirable imported albums. Curiously, it was this same friend who aroused Lenine’s interest to Brazilian music, taking him to see a Gilberto Gil concert.
Lenine arrived in Rio with 19 years for his first son’s birth. He intended to spend only one or two years, but kept on staying without much planning. Soon he signed up to take part in the 1981 Shell’s Brazilian Music Festival, with his own song, “Prova de Fogo”. In the following year, he recorded his first album, “Baque Solto”, released by Polygram, together with Lula Queiroga, also from Pernambuco. In 1993, Lenine released “Olho de Peixe” with Marcos Suzano. That record took both artists to international tours by Europe, United States and Japan.
The maturing period between both albums showed Lenine as a very prolific composer. Today, he has more than 500 songs and around 100 have been recorded. Some of them by great artists from different generations and styles: Maria Bethânia, O Rappa, Daniela Mercury, Elba Ramalho, Fernanda Abreu, Dionne Warwick, Sérgio Mendes, Ney Matogrosso, Frejat, Gabriel O Pensador, Zizi Possi, Margareth Menezes, Miyazawa and Pedro Guerra, among so many.
He’s been living in Rio for more than 20 years and has been able to pierce himself into the Samba World, composing several successful Samba songs for the Samba street group “Suvaco de Cristo”, one of the main attractions of Rio’s street carnival. In the early nineties, “Bundalelê” was one of his eight Samba songs that were elected to represent the street group and it ended up in his first solo album.
1997 was the year of “O Dia Em que Faremos Contato”, mixed in Peter Gabriel’s Realworld Studios and released in Brazil by BMG , it was considered a revolutionary milestone of Brazilian Music. It united acoustic and state-of-the-art electronic technology, regional roots and international pop language, redirecting Brazilian Music and opening new ways, new courses improving the Brazilian music and culture even more. With this album, Lenine won two SHARP awards as Revelation and Best Song (“A Ponte”, in partnership with Lula Queiroga). “O Dia Em Que Faremos Contato” was also released in Japan and Europe.
After that, he went on tour throughout Brazil and shows in Japan. In May ’99, Lenine took part in the Carte Blanche Project in the Cité de la Musique, in Paris as Caetano Veloso’s guest. Lenine didn’t waste the opportunity: he fascinated the French audience and opened way to a great career in Europe.
Three months later, Lenine released “Na Pressão”, his much expected second solo album. With no formulas, the album goes from the poetic “Paciência” to the heavy Brazilian folk-tecno “Alzira e a Torre”, contrasting with “Rua da Passagem (Trânsito)” partnering with Arnaldo Antunes. In this song, the noises from the street are blended to the brass of little folk bands, revealing all the Brazilian ethnical mixtures. That’s how Lenine works, traveling through a hybrid territory, knowing exactly what to do and what to say, as in his autobiographic song “Eu Sou Meu Guia”: “And I’ll go towards any direction / And I’ll be back / I am my own guide”.
Whether honoring Jackson do Pandeiro – the man who best blended different styles in Brazil – in “Jack Soul Brasileiro” or politically warning an apparently amorous speech in “A Rede”, Lenine doesn’t let us stop dancing. “Relampiano”, already recorded by Paulinho Moska (his partner in this song) and Elba Ramalho, is brought here in its definite version, mixing xote, trip hop and Dominguinhos’ accordion. Naná Vasconcelos takes part in the tittle-track, in “Eu Sou Meu Guia” and in “Tuby Tupy”, which refers to anthropophagy and the 500 years of Brazilian colonization.
“Na Pressão” is the result of a musical melting pot with samba, rap, coco, maracatu, funk, embolada, balada, repente, baião, rock, xaxado, techno, xote, jungle and a lot of coherence and creativity. The phrases and verses offered in the 11 themes work as an X-ray, a faithful portrait from the everyday life: misery, fear, madness, heartache and solitude are some of several Lenine’s approaches. He defines himself as a “sound chronicler” from Brazil in the late decade/century/millennium.
For three years, Lenine played on Brazilian and specially on international stages. His tour went through several countries, reaching more than 800 thousand people. In France alone, were he has a wide audience and his record “Na Pressão” sold 300 thousand copies, he has been in 14 cities, always pointed as one of the most representative names of the Brazilian music new musicians.
Lenine has worked as a screenwriter for TV and he says that his songs are like small screenplays. Expert in “musical iconography”, in 2001 Lenine plunges deeper in his relationship with movies and theater, signing the musical direction for the TV special “Caramuru – A invenção do Brasil”, that became a movie later on – and for the play’s soundtrack “Cambaio”. The first experience was a reinvention of his own work as a creator of the soundtrack for the TV series, adapting songs for the movie. In the second, he took part in the project from the beginning, adapting the newly-made songs of Chico Buarque and Edu Lobo for the universe of the streets. IT took three months, where Lenine was able to witness the work of 18 young artists.
2001 was a very productive year. Lenine wrote songs for several artists, from Frejat to Maria Bethânia and he was called to write songs for two TV series, “As Filhas da Mãe” and “O Clone”. Besides, he accepted an invitation to write, arrange and produce a theme for the children’s show “Sítio do Piaca-Pau Amarelo”, an enormous success in the Brazilian TV. The show is based in the literary work of Monteiro Lobato, always present in the life of the child Oswaldo Lenine Macedo Pimentel.
In his third album, Lenine makes use of the memory from nights of poetry, music and theater in Rio’s pubs in the late eighties. “Falange Canibal” (Cannibal Crowd) was the name of the stage in which the only rule was not having any. But such practice did not simply strengthen the composition of this album. As Lenine says: “Falange Canibal could have been the title of any of my previous albums. That feeling that guided the quests, the desires and the restlessness of that group of excited people has always been present in my life.”
Some partnerships are always present in my works, such as those with Bráulio Tavares, Lula Queiroga, Ivan Santos, Dudu Falcão, all regulars of the good old “Falange Canibal” and Lenine’s eternal creation accomplices. Besides those, there are Sérgio Natureza, Carlos Rennó e Paulo César Pinheiro, This is the songwriter team from “Falange Canibal”, produced by Tom Capone – who also produced “Na Pressão” – and Mauro Manzolli.
The last track of the album, “O Homen dos Olhos de Raio X (The man with X-ray eyes) is the first to show its multifaceted view. The title was taken from the title in Portuguese of an early sixties’ Roger Corman classic. “The track was recorded on the first time we played and without overdubs.” It’s an authorial song and its way of playing guitar – Lenine’s trademark – makes it one of the most representatives in the album.
From his stroll through the world, Lenine brought much more than influences in his luggage. In “Falange Canibal”, together with Brazilian musicians from several styles – Júnior from Vulgue Tostoi, Marcelo Lobato and Xandão from Rappa, Henrique Portugal and Haroldo Ferreti from Skank, Kassin and Berna, Plínio Gomes, the elders from Mangueira samba school, the Cambaio cast, Frejat, Eumir Deodato, Zé Miguel Wisnik – you can find musicians from Ukraine – Alexander Cheparukhin, from Farlanders), France (Claude Sicre and Ange B., from Fabulous Trobadors), Cuba (the Yerba Buena band), Madagascar (Regis Gizavo), USA (Ani Difranco and Living Colour) and Porto Rico (Steve Turre). But don’t try to classify it as a “World Music” album. Lenine is not interested in uniformity, but in the difference that each one of these names can add to his music.
Daring and innovating, blending and depurating, Lenine follows his trip, overcoming the barriers supposedly imposed by language. His route may seem confuse – from Recife to the world, with scales in Europe, Rio, Mexico and Japan. But nothing is lost in the way. The result is unique, but the destiny is plural. In march 2002, “Falange Canibal” was released simultaneously in 10 different countries.
Instead of releasing “Falange Canibal” with a big tour at the same time, like he had done with his previous Cds, Lenine decided to let the record mature and performed a few low-key gigs before the official release.
On August 2002, Lenine debuted the new concert at the Canecão in Rio, followed by gigs in São Paulo, Salvador, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Bonito, Natal and Belém. The musician took care to transfer the CD to the stage without radically changing the arrangements. On stage with him, the powerful trio of Jr. Tostoi (guitar), Marcelo Mariano (bass) and Pantico Rocha (drums) gave just what was needed for the new songs. The chemistry was perfect.
In September, confirmation came that the road was the right one. “Falange Canibal” was the Grammy Latino’s winner in the category “best contemporary pop album”.
In the following month, Lenine put on two sold-out concerts at La Cigale, Paris, for the release of the new album. The French were so impressed they called him back for two encores before letting him end the show. The newspapers Le Monde and Liberátion didn’t hold back their compliments at his “astonishing musical alchemy”. During the week that he stayed in Paris, Lenine worked 12 hours a day and gave interviews for France's main newspapers and radio stations.
After five albums recorded in Brazil Lenine was invited to record his recent CD, and first DVD, “InCité”, at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. The CD features Yusa, a Cuban bass player /vocalist, and Argentinean percussionist Ramiro Musotto. Award winning Brazilian music engineer, Moogie Canazio, watched Lenine’s rehearsal at “Mistura Fina” in Rio and said, “I was surprised and impressed by the quality of the project.”
In September 2006, another CD and DVD, MTV Acústico, was released. It presents an acoustic version of Lenine’s current concert programme and features brass, strings and special guests such as Richard Bona and Julieta Venegas. This new project has toured twice in Europe in 2007. For the first time Lenine presents Brass players live on stage
“I don’t think I compose, play, arrange, sing or produce well. My best quality is being intuitive,” said Lenine. “I don’t do music. Music is simply the conduit. I deepen the human relationship. Actually, that is the only thing I do.”
